


Like Real People Do

by Dead_Alias



Series: Like Real People Do [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Creature Jaskier | Dandelion, Established Relationship, Fae Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Immortal Jaskier | Dandelion, M/M, Magic Revealed, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Soft Jaskier | Dandelion, T for Tender, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23729479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dead_Alias/pseuds/Dead_Alias
Summary: “Are you hiring me, girl?”After a beat of silence, the two staring at each other, she stands tall and scoops the coin into her apron pocket and shakes her head. “No, Witcher, I don’t believe I am. Just thought you should know is all.”He sighs out a breath through his nose, looking away. He grips the mug still in his hand a bit stronger and brings it to his lips.“It’s the wood near your professor is why I thought you should know.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Like Real People Do [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712947
Comments: 32
Kudos: 472
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection





	Like Real People Do

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this so soft, y'all.

The road to Oxenfurt was silent. It was nearing dusk over the horizon to the East. Geralt could feel the lingering warmth of the sun scrape against his shoulders like long fingers as it lowered behind the trees to his back. He already saw the city and the fires being lit across it’s building faces, a welcome beacon to travelers from afar looking to join the higher society of bright minds. Or- to see very old friends.

Roach strolled through the entrance of the city once it was properly twilight, the hustle and bustle of the day that welcomed them was dying down into something else for the night. There were still dozens of people outdoors due to the temperate night setting in; the day’s dry summer heat cooling just slightly to breathe fresher, cooler. He had certainly needed the reprieve. He knew he could find it easily here, knowing the layout of the city and all its offerings as instinct now with how often he had walked these streets with his bard. Everything within a quick walk of the Academy is where the students would find their fill of the evening, loud and bountiful of character and people. The areas beyond that were for services and business though a few smaller taverns still stood amongst the list. The outskirts from the main campus were where he liked to lie low- the closer to the edge of the city, the better.

He easily found the usual inn he stayed. Thanks to Jaskier, he had befriended the owners as well as the generations that kept up the inn after the initial patrons passed. They often said little to him but got ready a large cup of ale as soon as he walked through the door. The stable hands also took very good care of Roach for the time they were here.

The front room was scarce of patrons, but the few who were drinking and dining were quiet and hushed. As he entered, there was a pause in conversation as heads turned just to see the addition but easily resumed their mumbled talk. He lumbered up to the front counter as the young pretty strawberry blond behind it turned down the hall to fetch the ale. She slid back behind the counter in front of him, clattering the large stoneware onto the countertop and crossing her arms at the edge looking up at him.

“Our rates have gone up since last you’ve been, Witcher.” She said to him in greeting, a pleasant quirk to her lips. There was no malice from how she regarded him either, which he silently always thanked. “You here for him again?”

After giving a nod hardly seen, he took the mug and downed half of it in a few large gulps. He set the mug back down to the counter gently. He fished out his coin purse and handed over the extra expense.

She kept it on the counter untouched.

“You know,” she cocked her head and squinted at him. “There’s been talk of something strange happening in the wood just shy of town. Few folks on the edge of the city say people singing in tongues, nothing they’ve heard even around here. You think you’d know anything about it?”

“Singing?”

“Yeah. Like there’s one of those high temples in there and they’re chanting. Weird glowing lights and what all. Some say it’s a sorcerer or maybe some sirens come up too far from the coast. Following upstream, if you get me.”

“Are you hiring me, girl?”

After a beat of silence, the two staring at each other, she stands tall and scoops the coin into her apron pocket and shakes her head. “No, Witcher, I don’t believe I am. Just thought you should know is all.”

He sighs out a breath through his nose, looking away. He grips the mug still in his hand a bit stronger and brings it to his lips.

“It’s the wood near your professor is why I thought you should know.” She says it like it’s an afterthought, like it’s just a silly fact of life not weighing on a thing. But she sees the way his shoulders tense just a bit further, sees his eyes go intense into his mug boring a hole through the bottom. She shrugs. “Anything messing about out there has no right disturbing the peace.” She heads around the hall once again only to come back a moment later with a fresh mug of ale and the key to his room. Geralt drinks the rest of the one in his hand before trading it for the new one and retreating into one of the darker corners of the front room.

Geralt sits there silently, keeping to himself. He thinks hard about what will come tomorrow morning when he sets out for the wood. He only sleeps from the pleasant tingle of alcohol and the mostly soft bed in his room, but he has wild dreams making his breath come fast. He doesn’t wake from them. He doesn’t remember come morning.

**

He rides Roach out of the city until he gets to the edge of the wood, dismounting and pulling her along the trodden path in. He wasn’t often on high alert when walking this route. The quiet serenity of the forest gave him no reason to be usually. He could hear the birds chirping and flittering around above, the rabbits and foxes scurrying in the underbrush, the babbling brook that the path ran alongside further ahead and then trailed deeper Northwest to join with the coast. He smelled the subtle whiff of the native flowers and fauna that lie here, the oak of the trees. It was fresh and open on this road. The crunch of the compacted ground under his heavy step and the padding of Roach’s hooves the only thing breaching his ears for a while.

The radiance of sunlight split through the trees from the canopy, the shapes ever shifting on the floor when a gentle breeze swept through. The light caught off the water adjacent to him and refracted into the air causing sprinklings of blinking sun through the trees, yellows and greens highlighting and dancing upon his path. A wind picked up again softly rattling the branches and leaves to sway with its direction. And that’s when he heard it.

Soft singing coming from further in.

Geralt could easily see at least a mile in all directions the trees were still so spread out, hardly able to hide anything without a magic barrier, a spell of illusion perhaps? He gripped Roach’s reigns tighter, falling closer in step with her muzzle near his shoulder.

The singing continued, gentle as a lullaby. What sounded like multiple voices thrown around him layered pleasantly with each other. He peered around at the trees and brush swaying along with the melody, a soft hum pulsing through the landscape. There was a feeling of such familiarity to the tone, but he couldn’t quite place it; a word at the tip of his tongue swiftly forgotten before he could fully savor the taste. The further he walked, the louder the voices got. At some point, the plucking of strings was added to the song, sweet and light. It all made Geralt’s insides vibrate and flutter about as if his tendons were being plucked and his breast was swelling with the vocals. The medallion at his chest pulsed.

He still hadn’t seen anything. Nothing in the trees. Nothing above. Nothing was following. So where was it coming from?

Soon enough, he came upon the small cleared patch of kept land behind a small iron fence posted between two large trees which seemed to absorb the metal into their trunks. It had an opening where the dirt trail lead right through. He had made it to the cemetery.

He left Roach at the entrance, being inside the clearing spooked her and he never knew how long he was staying on his visits here. It would have been fruitless to use a Sign to calm her when she was just as well outside the gate. Geralt patted her side and muttered a, “Stay here, girl,” before heading in and going straight to the far corner- less manicured but kept nicely by the surrounding vegetation. The grave was alone here, the land elevated up to join the base of the hills that sloped the horizon line. He approached. The grass had been grown in for decades now, settling into the rest of the area nicely, though now it was too long, sprouting up around the large jagged stone nestled into the base roots of a large tree. Moss grew on the right side of the trunk enveloping half the base and what few thick roots sprawled out above ground before plummeting into the earth. Equally large plants were grown around the tree though none of them breached down to the grave.

He knelt in front of the gravestone he’s read at least a couple hundred times already in the half century since it was placed there. _Julian Alfred Pankrantz Viscount de Lettenhove._ It’s not until he reaches out to grab at the small yellow flower that’s grown next to the headstone that he realizes they surround him in a circle about the grave, the long grass hiding some of them from his initial sight. The singing has stopped by now (he had hardly noticed its’ absence), just the sighing of the trees as the breeze whispers through the forest. He curses for not realizing this trap, but he’s stuck now.

His hand that had set on the ground for balance, grips into the grass with a tight fist and just as suddenly, he tears the clump of dirt away, flinging it outside the fairy circle. Geralt’s eyes zero in on the ground below him. All his concentration focuses on digging up this patch of earth in a frenzied trance. He loses track of his own body, seems like he’s watching himself do the task. He doesn’t know how long he digs; he doesn’t know why he feels this urge, this burning desire to upend the spot till his bones ache of exhaustion, till he has dirt buried more under his filthy nails than there is below him. Everything around him seems still, frozen in the moment of his descent save for the sunlight splotching from overhead. He continues to dig, his arm muscles burning, his lap dirtied with soil and mud, and his knees damp from the cold earth beneath that mashes under his weight. The piles around him grow and grow, flung every which way disrupting the landscape. His fingers scrape up more until his nails catch.

The feeling is so different that it shocks him, hand snapping back as if burned. But his eyes never lose focus and soon his hands are back at work, scooping the soil and burrowing further in to feel that softness that gives way again. He dusts the patch off and is treated to pale skin dusted by dark hair, small bits of dirt clinging in the pattern of hair. He readjusts his stance and digs with a new vigor, slowly revealing more and more skin stained by its time underground. He exposed the breastbone, the pale pink of the being’s nipples shown before finding the right shoulder and digging down along the side to free the arm, placing it above the piles of dirt lightly. It was a fleeting moment that he noticed the long sharp nails on the dirty, almost soot colored fingers. He plunged his hands into the ground, curving around what must have been the neck, delicately. No need to poke and prod roughly at something so important. Geralt cleared the way above the face before grabbing the being by the back of the neck, soft hair in his grasp, and hoisting it through.

The dirt fell from the being’s-the man’s-face, dark hair tousled in loose waves and sticking up in random places only to sweep across their forehead. Geralt took in their pale features; the closed eyes with long equally dark lashes, the long nose that pointed at the end and gave further direction to slightly parted rose-pink lips. He looked on, past his lips to see too-sharp teeth as his dirt stained rough fingers brushed away more soil from the pockets of his eye sockets and his ears, drastically pointed also.

Geralt finally sat back, staring at the half upturned once-was grave of his beloved bard. His gaze wandered over the sleeping figure, breast falling slowly, pleasantly, even. Though the creature held the face of his former companion, the rest of him was wrought with such an olden magics he never knew the bard to have possessed. It couldn’t be…

The sunlight above flickered across his pale face, breeze sweeping his hair off his forehead and just as Geralt watched the fine strands of hair glisten with light, his eyes fell onto the pair now staring back at him. Brilliantly blue as the most beautiful summer sky and as clear as the ocean a few miles from the wood here.

Jaskier.

“Jaskier…?” Geralt gasped out, his voice caught in his throat.

“Hello, my love.” The saccharine voice of his bard sauntered into his ears and buzzed around his head. Excited blue eyes met his again, and in one fell push, Jaskier was launching into his arms powerfully, grave be damned. Geralt clumsily caught him, arms wrapped around his very naked body as another pair twined around his neck holding him close. Over Jaskier’s shoulder, he could see the surrounding grass not upturned slowly start growing longer, the bushes alongside the tree started to bloom its flower buds, and the tree itself seemed like it creaked as if exulting a large kept in sigh. Geralt also noticed the medallion against his chest thrummed of magical activity. Yeah, no shit.

Jaskier acknowledged this with a small giggle and pulled away only to smile fondly at the Witcher. His hands still gripped around his neck but were now stroking his jaw and over his cheekbone with extended thumbs. His skin rose from the tickling of the now sharp nails caressing over his skin. He’s lost in the feeling for a second, captured by the glowing lightning blue of the others’ eyes. And then it’s gone. The haze he’s felt enslaved by is gone, the deafening quiet of the space, of the fairy circle- he looks down. It’s gone, torn asunder from the piles of dirt. He looks back to Jaskier quickly, almost as if to see if he’s still there, yep. The hand on his neck burns of warmth and tenderness and he doesn’t mind one bit if his flesh sears off. He allows himself to lean into it momentarily and then stands.

A million things are racing through his head as he peers down at a much younger looking Jaskier than he last saw half a century ago and offers his hand to help the man up. Jaskier takes it and seems to fly into his grasp again with a flutter of light behind him, a fluid and lighter movement than he remembers the bard having at this age. Which is what, exactly?? He’s put the pieces together already. He knows what the puzzle looks like. However, he’s having an extraordinarily difficult time saying it aloud.

He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but closes it again. He takes Jaskier’s hand in his to pull him along out of the graveyard to Roach. Despite the tight but delicate grip that is squeezing his hand back, it feels as though a gentle breeze is following next to him and not the man- the creature -beside him. Roach snorts and tips her head in greeting, fidgeting her hooves to kick up dirt. Jaskier’s hand is gone from his like ribbon blowing on the wind to say hello back. His hands graze over her snout and up the bridge of her head to pet down her neck, whispering something melodic to her. She bumps her face into his shoulder and flicks her tail.

“She’s beautiful. How long have you been with her?”

Geralt is silent. Instead he grabs his cloak in the saddle bag and offers it out to Jaskier. To his surprise, the man grabs the edge of the fabric and turns his back. Geralt pauses before shuffling it and draping it over the naked man himself. His hands linger on the broad shoulders and down his arms before falling to his sides. Jaskier takes the fabric and wraps himself up tightly, burrowing his face into the bunch spilling from his hands and taking a deep breath. He looks positively at peace, an open vulnerable smile gracing his features.

“Thank you,” he whispers. He steps closer to Geralt, lifting a hand to his ear and tucks a small yellow flower behind it. “How is it I can repay you?” He gazes at the Witcher. There it is again, that stare, those blue eyes hiding nothing.

“Stay in my company.” The words are out before he knows what he’s saying.

Jaskier’s smile widens.

They walk back down the path in relative silence. Geralt watches Jaskier the entire time, thinking quietly to himself. He should have known the bard wouldn’t stay quiet for too long though. “I can feel how hard you’re thinking back there.” Jaskier throws over his shoulder with his lips quirked up and eyes bright. He turns forward and starts humming. He hums the tune as if picking it from the forest itself. It’s the same tune he heard on the way into the wood. The more Jaskier hums, the more voices he seems to hear surrounding them, splitting off amongst the trees. Glimpses of light glitter here and there across the forest. They appear for a moment, walking with the trio, then disappearing.

Geralt slows and turns them off the path towards the clear water stream he can hear not too far away. Jaskier knows exactly where it is by the look of his careful and knowing movements. They reach the edge of the slope and rocks in no time. They peer over the sparkling water and wet rocks as the sun shines more openly here. The scenery twinkles with the brightly colored flowers beyond the other bank, the stream cascading down the hill, and the sun catching on the bugs’ wings flying around.

It seems like something from a dream. All of this.

Jaskier nods and hands him back the cloak temporarily to descend on the stream to wash. Geralt tosses it over Roach’s saddle before following, a few steps behind. He’s also still covered in dirt and dried mud, forearms stained with the soil, under his nails properly lined with black.

The splash of water snaps his attention to Jaskier running his hands back through his sopping wet hair, water trickling down the side of his face and torso. His skin is raised in gooseflesh from the cool water, the dirt sliding down in dark rivulets, droplets glistening stuck to the hair on his chest and down his belly. Geralt watches while Jaskier cleans himself, scrubbing at his arms under the water to rid of the grime. He notices a light pink scar on the back of his shoulder: the puncture wound of the time Jaskier was assaulted with a crossbow arrow during the war. The closer he looked, the more he saw. The scars raking across his ribcage in talon width from a too-close call from a monster hunt gone poorly. When Jaskier stood to scrub his legs, Geralt saw the bite marks around the back of his left knee and calf when he was taken and dragged into a den under a magical grandfather tree. Geralt had to fight off five of them and carry his bard-hobbling on one leg-back to Roach before desperately searching for a healer. That injury was once a large reason Jaskier could no longer travel with him. The wound, though it had healed, had caused the bard considerate irritation during the cold months and rainy days. Though it bothered him, making his walking stiffen, he never complained to Geralt about it. He knew he was coming to the end of their journeys and just wanted to hold onto them as long as he could. In the end, Jaskier took back up being a professor and stayed at The Academy until he could no longer teach either. Geralt had been with him when he passed, refusing to leave his side for nearly anything the years leading up to it.

This was definitely his Jaskier; he has the same scars over the decades they were together, the energy that poured off him was the same excitable mischief, even his scent was the same. The scent that was now filling his flared nostrils when he picked up a wave of satisfaction from the bard. He hadn’t realized he was still staring- or maybe he had and didn’t care anymore. Geralt can’t take his eyes off him and Jaskier preens under the stare. He trails his still-sharp fingers across his collarbone, stopping to edge up his neck for but a moment before going down and flattening his hand running down his breast over a nipple and to cross under his opposite elbow.

He slowly glided through the water towards where Geralt was half sat on a large boulder, posture still tense and ready for unsuspected eyes. He lifted a leg out of the water and Geralt’s eye went directly to it, scaling up the flesh to the dip of his hipbones, up to his navel and further up to the curve of his neck. Further still, drawing the shape of his lips, lightly parted, and finally making eye contact. Jaskier slotted between his open legs. Geralt uncrosses his own arms and easily brings them around Jaskier’s waist. One hand rested on his hip, one on Geralt’s chin, thumb playing over his bottom lip. “I’ve missed you, my friend.”

His heart swells with a longing he’s been remiss with. He hasn’t let himself feel it often, its been all too painful to dwell on. The torment must show in his eyes because Jaskier’s expression softens if even possible. The heady shared air between them evaporates to make room for Jaskier’s mouth on his. It’s just a chaste whisper of a kiss. Oak, honey and sage fill his nostrils again as he suddenly brings the younger man forward to deepen the kiss. He takes an all-consuming breath in, scenting the air, scenting the man, scenting the arousal -deep and burning- and happiness -light and warm- in the moment.

Jaskier just smiles against his mouth when they’re not sharing kiss after kiss, eyes alight with such affection Geralt almost forgot what this felt like. The more he takes in Jaskier’s scent, the more his body is pulled closer until he’s properly sitting in Geralt’s lap fingers through his dark hair, the more the Witcher feels like his head is spinning, his lungs straining from too small of breaths, the more his world narrows down to Jaskier and Jaskier alone.

Eventually, Jaskier speaks quietly, a sigh of the forest moving through his lungs, “You should wash as well, you’re filthy.” The scrunch of Jaskier’s nose pulls at the cupid’s bow of his lips in a way that has Geralt’s heart flying away from him. He never would have believed such a small motion would have such fondness surging through his chest. The lean man atop him chuckles, a deep chirping that reminds him of lying on warm sweet grass. Sharper nails than he’s used to are carding against his scalp, but they send small pleasant tremors through his body, so he supposes they can continue for now.

“Hmm,” Geralt agrees, making no move to get up. He wants to soak in this moment just a little longer...

**Author's Note:**

> This is legit my first fanfiction, so if you have any recommendations, drop a comment. This will eventually be a collection of stories, I just have to fight through some of the other chapters I have half-written right now.
> 
> Edit: added a small extension to the ending upon some advise given. Maybe it works better?


End file.
